In its deal for Vanguard Health Systems, Dallas-based Tenet Healthcare Corp. is also getting “the best acquisition team” in the industry, company president and CEO Trevor Fetter said.

And he quickly plans to put that team — paired with Tenet’s own acquisition specialists — to work.

“We’re very interested in expanding in markets we serve and expanding into new markets with scale,” Fetter said in an interview.

Tenet said Tuesday that it had completed the deal with Nashville-based Vanguard, announced in June. The company, which operates around the country, now employs more than 100,000 people and has 77 acute care hospitals, 173 outpatient centers, five health plans and six accountable care organizations.

Annual revenue will be between $15 billion and $16 billion, Fetter said.

Tenet paid $21 a share for Vanguard stock and assumed $2.5 billion of Vanguard debt, making the total value of the deal $4.3 billion.

Fetter was especially pleased with the terms his company secured for financing the deal. Tenet priced a total of $4.6 billion in secured and unsecured notes at interest rates of 6 percent and 8.13 percent.

“The company has been in business 45 years, and these are the cheapest rates at which we have ever borrowed money,” Fetter said. “It’s amazing how great the markets have been.”

Completion of the Vanguard deal came on the same day the insurance exchanges debuted and a day after Dallas-based Baylor Health Care System and Temple-based Scott & White Healthcare completed their merger, creating the largest not-for-profit health system in Texas.

As the Affordable Care Act moves to full implementation, this is a time of great change in the industry. More patients will be covered by insurance, but reimbursements from Medicare and Medicaid, which cover the elderly and poor, will be lower.

Fetter said the timing of the Vanguard closing was a coincidence.

“It went a lot faster than we anticipated,” he said of gaining approval from state regulators where the company operates.

In the deal, Tenet acquires hospitals in San Antonio and South Texas, which will double the company’s annual revenue in Texas to $3 billion.

He said Tenet alone ranked first or second in 14 markets, about 60 percent of the places it operated. The merged company ranks first or second in 19 markets, or 70 percent of the places it operates, he said.

“When we go into new markets, we would have to be in a very strong position … or see a pathway to building a strong position,” Fetter said.

Vanguard was especially adept at acquiring not-for-profit hospitals, and Fetter sees them as candidates for acquisition.